A top shooter needs great shooting mechanics, and either fun movement or tactical ones. Still, you can make a game that excels at all three and it will be no more dangerous than a lion inside an aquarium if it doesn’t feature proper maps.
When someone talks about a specific FPS you like, chances are most of your memories will come from one or just a few handful of maps that stood above all others. Read on to pay your respects.
Dust 2 (Counter-Strike)
If society collapses and video game archeologists of the future end up trying to put the pieces together, they might come to the realization that serious competitive online gaming started here. In truth, De_Dust 2 isn’t really the first competitive Esports map of all time, nor the first really popular one. Still, it sure is the best map in the original Counter-Strike 1.6, and it remains a banger even over 20 years later. Dust 2’s service to CS helped make the tactical shooting and Call Of Duty online scenes the juggernaut that they are today.
Not bad for a map made for fun without following any strict rules of map-making – because those didn’t exist yet.
Facing Worlds (Unreal Tournament)
Did you ever tell the youths of today you used to have some of the most fun a human body can survive on a CTF map composed of just two towers flying in space united by an impractical bridge? Good, because they’d laugh their asses off while likely doing what you can only assume is a Fortnite dance. Still, you know damn well that few things beat being a sniper on top of that tower, easily getting over 25 headshots per match, or, should things get too dire, just get the Redeemer to nuke all pesky passersby.
Facing Worlds isn’t a very competitive map because it’s too easy to prevent anyone from ever crossing the bridge, but taking turns between being the cool sniper and the fool who tries to make it across remains one of the most fun things you can no longer try today because Epic completely abandoned UT.
Ps: In case you’re wondering, yes, I’m using a picture of the newest iteration of Facing Worlds as a psyop to make you want UT back even more.
Nuketown (Call Of Duty series)
The universe has an interesting way of balancing things. Not long after Indiana Jones And The Crystal Skull gave us one of the dumbest scenes in movie history where Indy survives a nuclear blast by finding shelter inside a fake fridge on a nuclear testing site, gamers get one of the most fun maps of all time.
Nuketown is simple, really, just a bunch of suburban houses populated only by creepy nuclear test dolls. Still, having a shootout with your friends in a cozy place that’s clearly there only to be destroyed feels right every goddamn time.
Rust (Call Of Duty Modern Warfare 2)
“1v1 Rust?” Is one of the oldest memes spawning out of the Call Of Duty series, and for good reason. Modern Warfare 2 introduced one of the smallest maps in the history of online shooters, just a small patch of sand with a rusty tower in the middle.
Simple, sure, but also the best place to have an up close and personal duel with your friend or foe. Snipers? Submachine guns? Pistols? Knives? Anything goes on Rust, and everything works.
Blood Gulch (Halo: Combat Evolved)
Similarly to Facing Worlds from UT, Blood Gulch has a very simple setup of two enemy bases united by a long patch of land. But, instead of a bridge, players would get a wide corridor they could traverse on foot or by vehicle. You could take on Blood Gulch however you wanted, and it would always result in fun. If there’s one multiplayer map that would immediately sell anyone on everything Halo could do, it was Blood Gulch.
They used to say, “blood gulch is the map so nice, they remade it twice.” That was a long time ago, as Blood Gulch has since been remade for pretty much every Halo game, and it remains just as simple and addictive back in the day
Q3DM17 aka The Longest Yeard (Quake 3)
You’d think that’s probably a bad choice of a name to something you want to make popular, but, once you play it, you’ll understand Q3DM17’s experience will more than sell itself. First things first, Q3DM17’s setting of a sci-fi arena floating in space looks just amazing — even if you’re to experience its earliest version nowadays via Quake Live. Also, it allows for a lot of freedom. This is a map you can enjoy safely or by risking some tricky and dangerous jumps that might take you to a position you can more easily frag your enemies from.
On top of being an all time top-tier arena map, Q3DM17 remains likely the best Instagib map ever made.
Construct (Garry’s Mod)
Not all great multiplayer FPS maps need to be all about putting players in places where it’d be cool to have a shootout straight out of a Hollywood blockbuster. They can also be about creating, and Garry’s Mod’s Construct is one of the best places to both come up with the wackiest ideas, contraptions, and even other maps. Construct provides an incredibly chill and iconic area to let your mind fly free, and there’s no wonder it served as the primordial mud from whence a lot of awesome gameplay ideas came out of.
Erangel (PUBG: Battlegrounds)
As far as gameplay variety goes, there’s just no beating PUBG’s first map. Erangel played a big role in making the BR genre the beast it has been since, well, the release of Erangel, a role I believe many don’t realize.
I myself had to wait until the release of PUBG’s much inferior second map, Miramar, to realize how much of a miracle Erangel was. The team came up with such a wide area that never feels boring or repetitive, and where every sub set piece can still provide the perfect set for completely unique shootouts even so long after the game’s release.
Deck 17 (Unreal Tournament)
A lot of verticality and grey tones don’t usually do much for me in shooters, but I’ll open an exception for Unreal Tournament’s Deck 17. It features a beautiful balcony where snipers get a great view to the open area where the madmen have at it, wide and long corridors, and bridges without rails that will lead you to a nasty death in a vat of green goo. That’s the best of the late ’90s and early ’00s combined right there.
Deck 17 can be chaotic, but it’ll never make you feel too bad as you know damn well you can always go for the nuke that will calm things down.
Wake Island (Battlefield series)
Battlefield‘s greatest strength is the incredible size and scope of the battles it allowed players to partake in even as far back as the early 00’s. Still, sometimes it can be a bit much, and you might want to kick back and relax in a smaller and cozier war effort.
What makes Wake Island the definitive Battlefield map is its ability to feature both the series’ amazing scope, but to also make it feel smaller, more streamlined, by allowing players to conquer the whole island by starting at one end of this organic corridor of a map and finishing at the other. If you don’t care about that, however, that’s also fine, as Wake Island also excels at being played as if it were any other Battlefield map.
Published: Oct 19, 2024 09:02 am